


Extremely Specific Nookworm Headcanon

by arcaladiwoompa



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Nook moths, Nookworms, Other, headcanons, nookworm life cycle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:50:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8501305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcaladiwoompa/pseuds/arcaladiwoompa
Summary: Because my brain just wandered off on a tangent at work today figuring out the nookworm life cycle.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RainofLittleFishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/gifts).



> @RainofLittleFishes I bet you'd get a kick out of this one. :B

Nookworms evolved as parasites that eat troll genetic material. They are the sole reason trolls evolved to produce such a large quantity of slurry - half a bucket full per troll, which takes about a week to fully replenish outside of Drone Season and a day to replenish during Drone Season. (In my headcanons for some of my fics trolls don't produce any slurry at all outside of Drone Season, but that doesn't jive with what I came up with for these nookworms). One nookworm can eat half a bucket worth of slurry by screening out the proteins and excreting excess water. Nookworms are coldblooded. If they fill up on half a bucket full they only need to eat once a week.

Nookworms look like fat, translucent white caterpillars with hard black or dark brown heads. They have three pairs of true legs and a pair of pseudopalps on the rest of their segments. Only the true legs are used for gripping and climbing. Amphibious nookworms have fan shaped tails that they can spread open or closed. Their tails look like a shrimp tail split in half when open. You can tell how hungry it is just by looking at the color, because they take on the color of the slurry they have just eaten and it gradually fades as the slurry is digested. Nookworms have a tendency to buzz when annoyed, hungry, or looking for attention, which often amount to the same thing. They lap up slurry with their soft mouth parts.

Nookworms are the larval form of a nook moth. Domesticated nookworms were bred to remain in larval form for longer because while nook moths have a long ridged abdomen that will still fit in a nook, they still feed on slurry, and they still like to make buzzing sounds (for a mating call, if they get annoyed or if they otherwise feel like it), they only live for about a perigree after maturation. Wild nook moths breed by finding a host troll to back their abdomen into, then ovipositing their eggs into the host's gene bladder. A batch of tiny nookworms hatches and feeds on the slurry produced there for a few weeks until they are about as long as a finger and as fat as a quarter. By then the amount of slurry one troll can produce is no longer enough to feed them all. Then they crawl out and find a place to hibernate until Drone Season, when they look for a new host.

Nookworms are not allowed anywhere near the caverns. Jades have to keep a constant eye out for them or else they will spoil the batches of slurry meant for the Mother Grub.

Domestic nook moths can breed in the same way as wild ones but it's considered kinky to let them do so. Females typically get put down after breeding instead and their eggs are surgically harvested and raised in a vat of slurry which constantly has to be kept fresh until the worms are big enough to be sold as pets. They learn to stay awake for longer instead of hibernating if they are consistently supplied with enough slurry to fuel their waking metabolism. Heat lamps also help.

Male domestic nook moths can be kept around until they die or put down after they breed depending on what the owner feels like doing with them.

Wild nookworms hatch after the end of one Drone Season, grow to full size in the next Drone Season, and breed and die after the second or third Drone Season. By breeding for nookworms that stay in larval form for longer, they can live for five or ten sweeps instead of two or three.


End file.
